Just another stick in Africa!

(Pictures are from a different night, audio was deleted to protect eardrums on the net)

Heading to the beach is not a real event here in Monrovia, everyone takes time to head out to the ocean and wet their feet or do some body scrubbing. We, the team and I (currently a team of one), head out about every second day to get a swim and watch the sunset. On this occasion however, my lighter got wet and packed with sand… so I had to ask someone for a light. It turned into a night of fun, laughter and new friends…

Two South Africans, an Aussie and an Irishman sitting on a beach with a local song artist and bunch of Rastafarians and their guitars, is a recipe for laughter, live music and singing… as well as learning that Aussies have no idea how to insult South Africans effectively. (Are we really that dull? )

So as we sat in the dim light from the distant bar and drank many bottles of beer (Ok, I drank Heineken, the others had Guinness) while listening to two guitars, one missing three high strings… We were compelled to join in. We beat the drum table (it was plastic and made a nice deep dum dum tra dum dum dum sound) and even though we didn’t know the words, we sang along… even if it was just echoing a couple words which seemed in need of echoing.

The Irishman had lived in SA for a couple of years, in Jozi specifically, and had some very interesting insights, particularly how race is not an issue, but just a general discussion topic… and he has a surprising knack of mimicking an Afrikaner perfectly… even Liberians find that accent entertaining. We continued laughing over the discussion about how odd SA is versus the rest of Africa, as well as our views on Britain as our ‘Previous colonial masters’ and how we all deserve reparations for their horrid deeds, till quite late…

With new friends and new knowledge… the experience has left me wanting to learn how to play my guitar even move and spend more time on the beach with Rastas (No, you still know who you are and I will not climb the tree of knowledge with you).

How awesome it would be to sit in the bushveld around a fire and sing (or squeal) to songs… Where most South Africans can barely handle the silence of the busy city streets and are use to the loud thumping of a 60 inch sub woofer under the driver’s seat, and would prefer the ‘club seen’… I find it wonderful to know that people can still appreciate the soft strumming of a guitar and the serenade of a real human voice in the dark. But then, unlike the Republic of Azania, which is a land joined continent of its own…

This is Africa!

Laters… from a stick in Africa.

P.S. The Irishman has edumacated me to the origin of ‘Zamalek’ (the nick name for Black Label beer). Oddly enough, it is not a translation for ‘Very Lekkah’ into Zulu… it comes from when Black Label was recognised as the strongest beer in the townships and named after the Egyptian soccer team, El Zamalek, which was the then strongest team… in Africa at least.

N.B. To the right is a sonographic image of my future niece, Three, who I intend to train in the fine art of driving her parents up the wall… *GRIN* You have been warned!